Etienne Ledemay is an independent design director based in the south-west of France. In his work, he brings clarity to complexity through a keen eye for detail and a rational, systemic approach. He creates visual identities, websites and print materials for brands, institutions, cultural organisations and agencies.

Trained at Gobelins School Paris, he spent fifteen years working between Paris and London, including eight as lead designer at Spintank. His clients include Arte.tv, The Economist, the Cité des sciences, Arcom, Orange and the Conseil d’État. His practice combines information and interaction design, typographic work, graphic exploration, prototyping and custom-built tools. Pragmatic and precise, it also leaves ample room for imagination.

He defines rules that can live across every medium, from a record sleeve to a website interface. Each stage is shaped in close dialogue with the client, from initial scoping to the delivery of brand guidelines.

Alongside this, he DJs and explores the intersections of music, generative art and AI through personal projects.

Currently available for freelance

Mix

I have been mixing electronic music for twenty years, somewhere between house, techno and trance, with a pull towards the deeper, progressive end.

The mixes above are ones I recorded over the years, grouped in series. Display builds each set around one idea, a percussive take on techno or dub textures. Spotted gathers five finds from the previous month. This is focuses on a single artist or label. I also host Waveform, a one-hour mix show on Wave Radio, every first Saturday of the month at 8pm.

I design the covers too, from travel photographs and visual experiments. The records behind the mixes, bought on Bandcamp since 2017, are mapped in RUNOUT, a data project that links each track to the mixes it appears in.

Damassilia

Damassilia is the first EP by Wadee, a Syrian artist based in Marseille since 2022, who blends rap, slam and dabke dance to tell a journey between Damascus and France. Released by the Marseille label a89records, the project comes with work on translation and an introduction to slam, conceived as a way to find his voice and his roots again.

The Damassilia cover expresses Wadee’s duality, between his origins and his present. French, Arabic and the Ugaritic alphabet echo one another, down to the title and the tracklist, telling both his Syrian heritage and his life in Marseille. The result is a sober, powerful image, worthy of the story it tells.

A89 Records

Damassilia EP cover by Wadee, double-exposure portrait and blue title
Damassilia EP, single cover for Yamaa with Ugaritic cuneiformDamassilia EP, black cover with the title in blue and cuneiform
Damassilia posters by Wadee pasted on a street wall
Damassilia colour palette, Damascus blue and Marseille black
Damassilia typeface specimen in white on black
Damassilia poster with the portrait of Wadee
Damassilia black tote bag held on a metal staircaseDamassilia lanyard pass
Damassilia release visuals with Wadee's portrait and the release date